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For every real-life maverick out there, there are a thousand dreamers, people with great ideas about how to make the world a better place but unsure of whether they should try to make them real. If only there were a handbook to show them the way. Now there is. Would-be world-changer: Meet your very own “How-To” guide.
How to Know if You’re the One
So you have an idea. You’ve tossed it around at parties. Your friends think you’re brilliant. (And, of course, you are.) But do you have what it takes to be a successful maverick?
The first thing to ask yourself, says career coach and Have Fun • Do Good blogger Britt Bravo is: Are you obsessed? Does your idea keep you up at night? Has it grabbed hold of you and won’t let you go? Your answer has to be a resounding yes. The life of a maverick is filled with overwhelming obstacles and roadblocks. You need extraordinary stamina and passion to keep going when it looks like the odds are against you.
Next, ask yourself: How much are you willing to give up for your idea? A few years back, journalist Cristi Hegranes struggled to understand the story of a Nepalese woman she was interviewing. In desperation, Hegranes gave the woman her notebook and asked her to write her own story. What came back was an eloquent piece of journalism. The young writer realized that local people could probably tell their own stories as well or better than foreign correspondents. She created the Press Institute for Women in the Developing World to create journalism training programs in Nepal and Mexico. Another institute opens in Rwanda this year.
Hegranes’ work around the clock does not draw a penny from the organization’s budget. Instead, she bartends on weekends to support herself. “I know all these people who have wonderful ideas about how to make the world a better place,” she says, “but when push comes to shove they’re not willing to make personal sacrifices to make it happen.”
While mavericks need drive and determination, they don’t necessarily need a soup-to-nuts roadmap. By definition, mavericks operate in unchartered territories. Few of the people interviewed for this story had concrete plans for how they were going to bring their ideas to life when they started out. Instead, they just strapped on some courage, pinned on some faith and trusted in their own ingenuity to find their way forward.
How to Find the Courage to Leap
Mavericks are paradigm shifters. They challenge conventional wisdom and accepted ways of doing things. Both are good ways to get people — even those who could be and should be your supporters — to tell you your idea will never work. Some even brand you an outright enemy to your purported cause. It takes a brave person to challenge the norm.
Where does that courage come from? Usually, from utter exasperation with the status quo. “I was so sick of going to conferences and hearing people talk and nothing ever happening,” says Emily Pilloton, a furniture designer and writer. Last year, she created Project H Design as a vehicle to help designers create products that improve the lives of people in the developing world.
Strategists Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus set off a firestorm in 2004 when they declared that environmentalism was dead. Collectively, the two had three decades’ worth of consulting with environmental organizations under their belt. When it came to climate change, however, their research convinced them that traditional environmental approaches weren’t going to work. The pair was so convinced that the old ways were broken that they took the audacious step of breaking party discipline and declaring their views at a conference of environmental philanthropists.
“Don’t be scared to get a good hate on,” says Shellenberger, who, with Nordhaus, founded The Breakthrough Institute as an incubator for their ideas. “If you’re going to create a big, positive, affirmative vision, you have to be incredibly critical of the status quo.”
How to Turn Naysayers into Supporters
Don’t get alarmed by naysayers, says Kiva founder Matt Flannery. If no one’s telling you how bad your idea is, it’s probably not truly maverick. When Matt and his wife Jessica initially sought advice on how to use the Internet to enable regular folks to provide micro-loans to businesspeople in the developing world, microfinance and philanthropy experts told them it would never work. Philanthropists told them “donors” wouldn’t be interested because loans weren’t truly philanthropic. Venture capitalists told them traditional investors wouldn’t be interested because of the low rates of return.
Two years later, Kiva has become so wildly successful that it often has more people looking to fund projects than people looking for loans. And along the way, Kiva has invented a new type of philanthropist — the lender whose “donation” takes the form of lower investment returns. Today, some of the previous naysayers have become Kiva supporters. “It’s hard to criticize something that’s working,” Flannery says.
When Hegranes founded the Press Institute, she emailed a former colleague who had moved to a foundation underwriting journalism projects. His reply to her was short: “That’s cute. Not going to happen.” When she later bumped into him at a conference, Hegranes invited the man to dinner and talked his ear off about her project. When they were done, he invited her to send him an update in six months. When she did, he told her to update him again in another six months. She decided to update him every 30 days instead. A year into the project, the man was so impressed that his foundation has now become one of the Institute’s regular funders.
How to Break the Rules
You may decide to throw conventional wisdom to the wind, but you’ll probably still have to operate in the old world until it comes around to your way of thinking. In 2002, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius author Dave Eggers created 826 Valencia, a community literacy center in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission district. Eggers and his team knew they had to put the center at street level to encourage kids to wander in after school. But the space they leased was zoned for commercial use. The team put their heads together and came up with the ideal store to pique kids’ interest: pirate gear. In the front of 826 Valencia, patrons can buy all the basics for marauding on the high seas. In the back is a large study room where kids get one-on-one tutoring and take a variety of writing classes.
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This is a great and very inspiring article. I cannot tell you how many shocked faces I had to look at when I said to my colleagues I was no longer going to practice law and was instead going to start a website about meditation! If you could only see their faces!
Edited by: Sonia Gallagher on Sep 8, 2009 1:17:11 PMI've been running My Meditation Garden since March of this year and have never looked back. It took a lot of courage and determination which I've actually continued to work daily by following guided meditations (which I include on the site for free). I do not regret my career change and though at times difficult and frustrating, I have never looked back and am more happy each day to be able to share with the world of busy professionals, parents, and college students that simply meditating for 5 minutes a day can completely change their lives, health, and outlook. This is why I even offer the Free 5 Day No-Nonsense Meditation Program for other busy professionals like myself.
Sep 8, 2009 1:15:04 PM